“Good god, Matt! This is why banks have these rules! This is why corporations, hospitals, schools, even gas stations and movie theaters have them. I expect better of one of my agents, and I expected better of you.”
“Yes, Mister Collins.” Matt said, sadly. “I understand how poor my behavior was, and you are right to not trust me any further with this.”
“Well, that’s the unfortunate problem, Matt. I have to, because I don’t have any rapport with either Analog or Patrick… which is only slightly better than the terrible rapport you have. You know I don’t trust him enough to meet with him, and you know we can’t protect her from over here.”
“Then why not bring her over here, and use her as leverage?” Matt said honestly.
“How can you honestly suggest that?” Mr. Collins replied, evenly. He was irritated, but he kept his tone. “How can you honestly suggest that we risk Grips by bringing her over? And for what? What does it gain us?”
“Because then Patrick won’t be able to control the board.”
“He doesn’t control anything, Matt! He’s nothing but a liability to his own agency. If anything, he’s the greatest thing to ever happen to this project! The boy is such a loose cannon, we may as well pay him to stay in the HVA. But the fact remains, Matt, Analog isn’t worth anything to us on this side of the Wall. That, and I don’t care about leveraging anything against some idiotic rival agent. He doesn’t have the access. He isn’t worth a damn thing, and I’d just as soon be rid of him as soon as it’s useful to do so.”
“And her?” Matt asked. He knew it wasn’t his place to barter for her. To be honest, it probably lowered him even further in Mr. Collin’s eyes. But still he asked it. He cared for her; really, he did. And she was worth something to the project, even if it was just as a measly bartering chip. Not only was Matt willing to put himself in the line of fire for her, he was willing to sacrifice his position if need be.
“Maaa-aa-aaaatt!” Mr. Collins flailed his hands above his head and made an irritated sound that almost reeked of whining, “Why are you so stuck on this? I know you like her. She’s a bright girl, and pretty. If the stakes weren’t so high, sure, I’d entertain it. But we are caught up in a much bigger world here. It’s a world where millions of people hang in the balance—millions of people who have irritating little crushes on other people just like you. She’s worth more to us where she is. Here, she’s just another mouth to feed. Why should I put your personal desires over the needs of millions?”
“Because…” Matt thought, “…because I feel I owe her.”
“Well, you do. So what?”
“I…” Matt thought about it for a second. He knew that his romantic feelings didn’t amount to much, but dammit, they had to amount to something, didn’t they?… didn’t they?
“Look, Matt.” Mr. Collins must have felt sorry for him because he changed his tone slightly, “I’m not going to beat you over the head with this. You acted. It was stupid, but you acted. So now here we are, and this is the game we are playing now. So, let’s figure out a way to make this happen.”
“Alright, what do we do?” Matt said, grateful to still be included in the process.
“Let me tell you a story. You know I went to West Point, right?”
“I did, yes.”
“Did I ever tell you what I studied?”
“No, honestly… I don’t think I’ve ever heard.”
“Military science was my degree, but what I really went there to study was Game Theory. Even to this day, it’s my third greatest passion, right behind chess and handling punk-asses like you.”
“You were a Grandmaster, weren’t you?”
“Close. Too much publicity… I would have never been able to do this if I did that. But I certainly could have been, if my interests didn’t lie elsewhere. In any case, have you ever studied the Prisoner’s Dilemma?”
“That’s the one where the one convict decides to dime out his partner for a lesser sentence in the hopes that his partner-in-crime hasn’t dimed him out as well, right?”
“Yes, and it’s the basic problem in the field, Matt. Game Theory is there to prescribe mathematical value to people’s actions and motivations. You can’t always mathematically account for everything, of course… people do random and illogical things for any number of reasons. But populations and demographics, Matt, they always follow predictable patterns. It’s not necessarily because the individuals inside of them are inherently predictable, but because the amassed aggregate is made predictable by the ‘80-20 principle’.
“However, I’ve personally found that it’s also largely because any demographics’ leader—or leaders—are all mathematicians in a manner-of-speaking. Anyone who is in a position of leadership knows what’s good for him or her. And they got that way by being pragmatic about the realities of cost, benefit and attrition. Since most leaders have foresight into the greater good, they—and by extension, their companies and constituents—can be mathematically predictable.”
“Alright?” Matt said, scratching his head.
“Alright.” Mr. Collins said smiling, “What is our policy against the Russians in Afghanistan?”
“To kick them out.”
“And if we can’t accomplish that, what is our goal?”
“To make it as expensive as possible for them to continue.”
“Which would, and probably will, eventually culminate in…?”
“The Russians leaving Afghanistan anyway?”
“Right. In contrast, what is the main Soviet strategy?”
“…errr, to win?”
“Try again.”
“To… spread Communism far and yon?”
“Is that a short or long-term goal?”
“Long, but I’m not following.”
“Actually, it’s a short-term goal because it doesn’t result in a permanent state.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“In any case,” Mr. Collins laughed, “Both the US and the Soviets have short-term goals, but only the US has a clearly defined long-term goal—a finite state of affairs wherein everything cancels out with a clear, concise victory for one or the other. Based on that knowledge alone—and not taking into account sustainment of resources or military capability—who is more likely to win? The one who plans for where we are currently at—what the board currently looks like—or the one who plans for the long-term future, even if that future requires accepting losses along the way?”
“Obviously the long-term.”
“And why is that, Matt?”
“Because…”
“Let’s make it even more complicated,” Mr. Collins said, smiling wider.
“Please don’t.” Matt laughed.
“Sometimes, predictability is a good thing. It makes you more familiar… more understandable. It’s a great asset for building trust with our nation’s allies. But believe it or not, randomization is incredibly beneficial to both allies and opponents alike. If you run a grocery store, and every first of the month you run a sale, when do you think your opponent’s will try to run their sale?”
“The week before?”
“So, when will you in turn need to run your sale the next month?”
“The week before that.”
“But if I choose my sales at random consistently, that forces you to do the same thing, since you can’t predict me. This will sometimes work out for me, and sometimes against me. Either way, it creates a more sustainable economy between us, which benefits us both, right?”
“I really don’t understand where you are going with this,” Matt sighed.